"See! I told you we'd never get to school," sadly said the boy. "Oh,dear! And I thought this time teacher would not laugh, and ask mewhy I came so soon, when I was really late."
"It's too bad!" Uncle Wiggily said. "I did hope I could get youthere on time. But wait a minute. Let me think. Ha! I have it! Weare close to my bungalow. We'll run there and get in my airship.That goes ever so much faster than my auto, and I'll have you toschool in no time."
No sooner said than done! In the airship the late scholar and UncleWiggily reached school just as the nine o'clock bell was ringing,and so Diller-a-Dollar was on time this time after all. And theteacher said:
"Oh, Diller-a-Dollar, my ten o'clock scholar, you may stand up inline. You used to come in very late, but now you come at nine."
So the late scholar was not late after all, thanks to Uncle Wiggily,and if the egg beater doesn't go to sleep in the rice pudding, whereit can't get out to go sleigh-riding with the potato masher, I'lltell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Baa-Baa, the black sheep.
CHAPTER XXIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BAA-BAA BLACK SHEEP
"My goodness! But it's cold to-day!" exclaimed Uncle WiggilyLongears, the nice rabbit gentleman, as he came down to breakfast inhis hollow-stump bungalow one morning. "It is very cold."
"Indeed it is," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat ladyhousekeeper, as she put the hot buttered cabbage cakes on the table."If you go out you had better wear your fur coat."
"I shall," spoke the bunny uncle. "And I probably shall call onMother Goose. She asked me to stop in the next time I went past."
"What for?" Nurse Jane wanted to know.
"Oh, Little Jack Horner hurt his thumb the last time he pulled aplum out of his Christmas pie, and Mother Goose wanted me to look atit, and see if she had better call in Dr. Possum. So I'll stop andhave a look."
"Well, give her my love," said Nurse Jane, and Uncle Wiggilypromised that he would.
A little later he started off across the fields and through thewoods to the place where Mother Goose lived, not far from his ownhollow-stump bungalow. Uncle Wiggily had on his fur overcoat, for itwas cold. It had been warm the day before, when he had takenDiller-a-Dollar, the ten o'clock scholar, to school, but now theweather had turned cold again.
"Come in!" called Mother Goose, when Uncle Wiggily had tapped withhis paw on her door. "Come in!"
The bunny uncle went in, and looked at the thumb of Little JackHorner, who was playing marbles with Little Boy Blue.
"Does your thumb hurt you much, Jack?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Yes, I am sorry to say it does. I'm not going to pull any moreplums out of Christmas pies. I'm going to eat cake instead," saidJack Horner.
"Well, I'll go get Dr. Possum for you," offered Uncle Wiggily. "Ithink that will be best," he remarked to Mother Goose.
Wrapped in his warm fur overcoat, Uncle Wiggily once more startedoff over the fields and through the woods. He had not gone very farbefore he heard a queer sort of crying noise, like:
"Baa! Baa! Baa!"
"Ha! That sounds like a little lost lamb," said the bunny uncle,"only there are no little lambs out this time of year. I'll take alook. It may be some one in trouble, whom I can help."
Uncle Wiggily looked around the corner of a stone fence, and therehe saw a sheep shivering in the cold, for most of his warm, fleecywool had been sheared off. Oh! how the sheep shivered in the cold.
"Why, what is the matter with you?" asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
"I am c-c-c-c-cold," said the sheep, shiveringly.
"What makes you cold?" the bunny uncle wanted to know.
"Because they cut off so much of my wool. You know how it is withme, for I am in the Mother Goose book. Listen!
"'Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool? Yes, sir; yes, sir; three bags full. One for the master, one for the man, And one for the little boy who lives in the lane.'
"That's the way I answered when they asked me if I had any wool,"said Baa-baa.
"And what did they do?" asked the bunny uncle.
"Why they sheared off my fleece, three bags of it. I didn't mindthem taking the first bag full, for I had plenty and it was so warmI thought Spring was coming. And it doesn't hurt to cut off myfleecy wool, any more than it hurts to cut a boy's hair. And afterthey took the first bag full of wool for the master they took asecond bag for the man. I didn't mind that, either. But when theytook the third----"
"Then they really did take three?" asked Uncle Wiggily, in surprise.
"Oh, yes, to be sure. Why it's that way in the book of Mother Goose,you know, and they had to do just as the book says."
"I suppose so," agreed Uncle Wiggily, sadly like.
"Well, after they took the third bag of wool off my back the weathergrew colder, and I began to shiver. Oh! how cold I was; and how Ishivered and shook. Of course if the master and the man, and thelittle boy who lives in the lane, had known I was going to shiverso, they would not have taken the last bag of wool. Especially thelittle boy, as he is very kind to me.
"But now it is done, and it will be a long while before my woolgrows out again. And as long as it is cold weather I will shiver, Isuppose," said Baa-baa, the black sheep.
"No, you shall not shiver!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"How can you stop me?" asked the black sheep.
"By wrapping my old fur coat around you," said the rabbit gentleman."I have two fur overcoats, a new one and an old one. I am wearingthe new one. The old one is at my hollow-stump bungalow. You gothere and tell Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy to give it to you. Tell her Isaid so. Or you can go there and wait for me, as I am going to getDr. Possum to fix the thumb of Little Jack Horner, who sat in acorner, eating a Christmas pie."
"You are very kind," said Baa-baa. "I'll go to your bungalow andwait there for you."
So he did, shaking and shivering all the way, but he soon becamewarm when he sat by Nurse Jane's fire. And when Uncle Wiggily cameback from having sent Dr. Possum to Little Jack Horner, the rabbitgentleman wrapped his old fur coat around Baa-baa, the black sheep,who was soon as warm as toast.
And Baa-baa wore Uncle Wiggily's old fur coat until warm weathercame, when the sheep's wool grew out long again. So everything wasall right, you see.
And now, having learned the lesson that if you cut your hair tooshort you may have to wear a fur cap to stop yourself from gettingcold, we will wait for the next story, which, if the pencil boxdoesn't jump into the ink well and get a pail of glue to make thelollypop stick fast to the roller-skates, will be about UncleWiggily and Polly Flinders.
CHAPTER XXIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND POLLY FLINDERS
"There!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper,who took care of the hollow-stump bungalow for Uncle WiggilyLongears, the rabbit gentleman. "There, it is all finished at last!"
"What's all finished?" asked the bunny uncle, who was reading thepaper in his easy chair near the fire, for the weather was stillcold. "I hope you don't mean you have finished living with me, NurseJane? For I would be very lonesome if you were to go away."
"Oh, don't worry, I'll not leave you, Wiggy," she said. "What Imeant was that I had finished making the new dress for SusieLittletail, the rabbit girl."
"Good!" cried the bunny uncle. "A new dress for my little nieceSusie. That's fine! If you like, Nurse Jane, I'll take it to her."
"I wish you would," spoke the muskrat lady. "I have not time myself.Just be careful of it. Don't let the bad fox or the skillery-scaleryalligator with humps on his ears bite holes in it."
"I won't," promised Uncle Wiggily. So taking the dress, which NurseJane had sewed for Susie, over his paw, and with his tall silk hatover his ears, and carrying his red, white and blue stripedbarber-pole rheumatism crutch, off Uncle Wiggily started for theLittletail home.
"Susie will surely like her dress," thought the rabbit gentleman."It has such pretty colors." For it had, being pink and blue and redand yellow and purple and lavender and strawberry and lemon an
dOrange Mountain colors. There may have been other colors in it, butI can think of no more right away.
Uncle Wiggily was going along past Old Mother Hubbard's house, andpast the place where Mother Goose lived, when, coming to a placenear a big tree, Uncle Wiggily saw another house. And from insidethe house came a crying sound.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?" sobbed a voice.
"Ah, ha! More trouble!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I seem to be findinglots of people in trouble lately. Well, now to see who this is!"
Going up to the house, and peering in a window, Uncle Wiggily saw alittle girl sitting before a fireplace. And this little girl wascrying.
"Hello!" called Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice, as he opened thewindow. "What is the matter? Are you Little Bo Peep, and are youcrying because you have lost your sheep?"
"No, Uncle Wiggily," answered the little girl. "I am crying becauseI have spoiled my nice new dress, and when my mother comes home andfinds it out she will whip me."
"Oh, no!" cried the bunny uncle. "Your mother will never do that.But who are you?"
"Why, don't you know? I am little Polly Flinders, I sat among thecinders, warming my pretty little toes. 'And her mother came andcaught her, and she whipped her little daughter, for spoiling hernice new clothes.'
"That's what it says in the Mother Goose book," said Polly Flinders,"and, of course, that's what will happen to me. Oh, dear! I don'twant to be whipped. And I didn't really spoil quite all my nice newclothes. It's only my dress, and some hot ashes got on that."
"Well, that isn't so bad," said Uncle Wiggily. "It may be that I canclean it for you." But when he looked at Polly's dress he saw thatit could not be fixed, for, like Pussy Cat Mole's best petticoat,Polly's dress had been burned through with hot coals, so that it wasfull of holes.
"No, that can't be fixed, I'm sorry to say," said Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, dear!" sobbed Polly Flinders, as she sat among the cinders."What shall I do? I don't want to be whipped by my mother."
"And you shall not be," said the bunny uncle. "Not that I think shewould whip you, but we will not give her a chance. See here, I havea new dress that I was taking to Susie Littletail. Nurse Jane caneasily make my little rabbit niece another.
"So you take this one, and give me your old one. And when yourmother comes she will not see the holes in your dress. Only you musttell her what happened, or it would not be fair. Always tell mothersand fathers everything that happens to you."
"I will," promised Polly Flinders.
She soon took off her old dress and put on the new one intended forSusie, and it just fitted her.
"Oh, how lovely!" cried Polly Flinders, looking at her toes.
"And now," said Uncle Wiggily, "you must sit no more among thecinders."
"I'll not," Polly promised, and she went and sat down in front ofthe looking-glass, where she could look proudly at the newdress--not too proudly, you understand, but just proud enough.
Polly thanked Uncle Wiggily, who took the old soiled and burneddress to Susie's house. When the rabbit girl saw the bunny unclecoming she ran to meet him, crying:
"Oh! did Nurse Jane send you with my new dress?"
"She did," answered Uncle Wiggily, "but see what happened to it onthe way," and he showed Susie the burned holes and all.
"Oh, dear!" cried the little rabbit girl, sadly. "Oh, dear!"
"Never mind," spoke Uncle Wiggily, kindly, and he told all that hadhappened. It was a sort of adventure, you see.
"Oh, I'm glad you gave Polly my dress!" said Susie, clapping herpaws.
"Nurse Jane shall make you another dress," promised Uncle Wiggily,and the muskrat lady did. And when the mother of Polly Flinders camehome she thought the new dress was just fine, and she did not whipher little daughter. In fact, she said she would not have done soanyhow. So that part of the Mother Goose book is wrong.
And thus everything came out all right, and if the shaving brushdoesn't whitewash the blackboard, so the chalk can't dance on itwith the pencil sharpener, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggilyand the garden maid.
CHAPTER XXV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GARDEN MAID
"Hey, ho, hum!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbitgentleman, as he stretched up his twinkling, pink nose, and reachedhis paws around his back to scratch an itchy place. "Ho, hum! Iwonder what will happen to me to-day?"
"Are you going out again?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskratlady housekeeper. "It seems to me that you go out a great deal, Mr.Longears."
"Well, yes; perhaps I do," admitted the bunny uncle. "But morethings happen to me when I go out than when I stay in the house."
"And do you like to have things happen to you?" asked Miss FuzzyWuzzy.
"When they are adventures I do," answered the rabbit gentleman. "Sohere I go off for an adventure."
Off started the nice, old, bunny uncle, carrying his red, white andblue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch--over his shoulder thistime. For his pain did not hurt him much, as the sun was shining, sohe did not have to limp on the crutch, which Nurse Jane had gnawedfor him out of a corn-stalk.
Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far toward the fields and woodsbefore he heard Nurse Jane calling to him.
"Oh, Wiggy! Wiggy, I say! Wait a moment!"
"Yes, what is it?" asked the rabbit gentleman, turning around andlooking over his shoulder. "Have I forgotten anything?"
"No, it was I who forgot," said the muskrat lady housekeeper. "Iforgot to tell you to bring me a bottle of perfume. Mine is allgone."
"All right, I'll bring you some," promised Mr. Longears. "It willgive me something to do--to go to the perfume store. Perhaps anadventure may happen to me there."
Once more he was on his way, and soon he reached the perfume store,kept by a nice buzzing bee lady, who gathered sweet smellingperfume, as well as honey, from the flowers in Summer and put itcarefully away for the Winter.
"Some perfume for Nurse Jane, eh?" said the bee lady, as the rabbitgentleman knocked on her hollow-tree house. "There you are, UncleWiggily," and she gave him a bottle of the nice scent made from anumber of flowers.
"My! That smells lovely!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he pulled outthe cork, and took a long sniff. "Nurse Jane will surely like thatperfume!"
With the sweet scented bottle in his paw, the rabbit gentlemanstarted back toward his hollow-stump bungalow. He had not gone veryfar before he saw a nurse maid, out in the garden, back of a bighouse. There was a basket in front of the maid, with some clothes init, and stretched across the garden was a line, with more clothes onit, flapping in the wind.
"Ha!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if that garden maid,hanging up the clothes, wouldn't like to smell Nurse Jane's perfume?Nurse Jane will not mind, and perhaps it will be doing that maid akindness to let her smell something sweet, after she has beensmelling washing-soap-suds all morning."
So the bunny uncle, who was always doing kind things, hopped over tothe garden maid, and politely asked:
"Wouldn't you like to smell this perfume?" and he held out thebottle he had bought of the bee lady.
The garden maid turned around, and said in a sad voice:
"Thank you, Uncle Wiggily. It is very kind of you, I'm sure, and Iwould like to smell your perfume. But I can't."
"Why not?" asked the bunny uncle. "The cork is out of the bottle.See!"
"That may very well be," went on the garden maid, "but the truth ofthe matter is that I cannot smell, because a blackbird has nippedoff my nose."
Uncle Wiggily, in great surprise, looked, and, surely enough, ablackbird had nipped off the nose of the garden maid.
"Bless my whiskers!" cried the bunny uncle. "What a thing for ablackbird to do--nip off your nose! Why did he do such an impolitething as that?"
"Why, he had to do it, because it's that way in the Mother Goosebook," said the maid. "Don't you remember? It goes this way:
"'The King was in the parlor, Counting out his money, The Queen was in the kitchen,
Eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden, Hanging out the clothes, Along came a blackbird And nipped off her nose.'
"That's the way it was," said the garden maid.
"Oh, yes, I remember now," spoke Uncle Wiggily.
"Well, I'm the maid who was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,"said she, "and, as you can see, along came a blackbird and nippedoff my nose. That is, you can't see the blackbird, but you can seethe place where my nose ought to be."
"Yes," answered Uncle Wiggily, "I can. It's too bad. That blackbirdought to have his feathers ruffled."
"Oh, he didn't mean to be bad," said the garden maid. "He had to doas it says in the book, and he had to nip off my nose. So that's whyI can't smell Nurse Jane's nice perfume."
Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute. Then he said:
"Just you wait here. I think I can fix it so you can smell as wellas ever."
Then the bunny uncle hurried off through the woods until he foundJimmie Caw-Caw, the big black crow boy.
"Jimmie," said the bunny uncle, "will you fly off, find theblackbird, and ask him to give back the garden maid's nose so shecan smell perfume?"
"I will," said Jimmie Caw-Caw, very politely. "I certainly will!"
Away he flew, and, after a while, in the deep, dark part of thewoods he found the blackbird, sitting on a tree.
"Please give me back the garden maid's nose," said Jimmie, politely.